Nursery In A Closet Update #2: The Crib Goes In, The Art Goes Up!

A couple of weeks ago, I gave you a glimpse into my plans to put our baby's nursery in a closet. Last week, you saw the fabric go up on the wall.

Today, let's talk about the ridiculously tight-fitting crib and the wall of art. 

Here's the to-do list:

• Paint the walls gray
• Hang fish fabric
• Frame fish fabric & touch up paint frame
• Put in crib
• Patch & paint crib-assembly-related holes (it is a TIZZZZIGHT squeeze)
• Put up shelves
• Put up mobile
• Put up frames
• Make the shelves beautiful and efficient!

I've got a little secret for you... I have finished the closet nursery completely! But I am going to break it down into a few posts because I don't want your brains to explode from too much excitement.

My mom and her husband, Emery, came down a couple of weeks ago for a visit. They were mainly in town to spend lots of time with Cora and give me time to get some things done around the house. They very generously pitched in on house-related to-dos as well. I talked Emery into helping me put the crib up in the closet that was the exact same width as the crib. Emery had his doubts that it was going to work.

The 3/4" or so of space you see on either side of the crib is the baseboard. The crib is snuggled up as good as it gets to that baseboard. FYI- that is not the mattress we are using. It is just randomly there until we put the right one in.

But it did! And it only took about an hour, a bit of sweat and a few marks on the wall. I had counting on having to gouge out chunks of the wall and patch them later in order to make the crib fit. But it turned out to be one of those rare DIY times when things end up being easier than you expected.

I didn't take any photos of the crib-putting-together process for Emery's sake. He was already nice enough to take up this tiny space with me for close to an hour with serious doubts that the project would come to fruition. I didn't want to drag it on any longer for him.

I also talked Emery into spray painting a few frames for me. 

We may be low on space in this house but we are certainly not short on things to hang on the wall. There are canvases and frames galore in this hizzie. I still haven't hung a lot of art at our house and that is partly because I have too much to choose from. I keep second guessing myself. 

So, for the baby nursery in a closet I went art shopping at home and came up with 3 canvases and 3 frames. I looked through my "potential hang up" folder and found a couple of prints. Then, I went shopping in my scrap fabric bin. I had plenty of options.

My mom and I helped Cora make some lobster art with a foot print and a couple of hand prints.

Why yes, I did draw a shirt onto my daughter. I decided to try to limit the number of topless photos of her on the internet even if it means drawing a sweet green muscle t-shirt on her. She was shirtless because this was quite a messy project.

I drew a few ocean-ish objects and tried them out to see which I liked the best. We decided that my octopus looked too creepy and went with a ship, a whale, and a few fish.

Next, I traced them onto some nice stock paper and cut them out.

My mom ironed some scrap fabric for me and I stapled the fabric to the canvases. I glued our ocean buddies onto the canvas and we were in business.

I pulled a few pages out of one of my favorite book of children's illustrations (The Wild and Woolly Animal Book by Nita Jonas) and hung them up too. I bought the book a few years ago for some art in Cora's old room:

Here is the finished product:

A little close-up action for you: 

The dolphin and duck picture is from an Eric Carle book.

Start getting excited because next week I am going to show you the shelves and the mobile!